Latest Dem leader to turn against far-left candidate

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has piled on against rising New York socialist candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, rejecting the notion the Democratic Party should move far-left for the 2018 midterms and beyond.

“The Democratic Party is not a socialist party,” Waters said in an interview at CNBC’s Capital Exchange event Wednesday.

“I just don’t think our party should be identified because we have a few people who seem to be to the left of the left.”

The top Democrat is the latest leader of her party to voice anxiety over Ocasio-Cortez, along with Senate Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who denied a rise of socialism within the party after No. 4 Democrat Joe Crowley (D-NY) was defeated by the socialist bartender-turned-politician last month.

“It’s ascendent in that district perhaps,” she said of New York’s 14th congressional district, where Ocasio-Cortez won. “But I don’t accept any characterization of our party presented by the Republicans. So let me reject that right now. Our party is a big tent, our districts are very different, one from the other.”

“They made a choice in one district. Let’s not get yourself carried away,” she added. “It is about that district.”

Several other Democrats also expressed their discontent with Ocasio-Cortez’s debut into their party ahead of the midterms, with some saying her platform would “bankrupt the country.”

“Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose platform, like hers, is more Socialist than Democratic,” Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman wrote last week.

“Her dreams of new federal spending would bankrupt the country or require very large tax increases, including on the working class.”

Other Dems blamed the growing wedge between moderates and the far-left on the media’s fawning of the socialist neophyte.

“In some ways the media has pushed the young woman who was victorious in the New York congressional race against Joe Crowley to the point that she is being made out as some kind of deity,” Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO) said on Fox News Wednesday.

Of course, the Democrat Party of today is far-left in everything but name.

Many traditionally moderate lawmakers like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have adopted the far-left’s “Abolish ICE” platform, and other leaders like DNC Chairman Tom Perez admitted socialists like Ocasio-Cortez were the “future of the Democratic Party” in part because they champion universal healthcare and free college tuition for all.